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Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Just the Facts Mam? Is Science the only From of Knowledge?

Kandinsky

One thing I've often noticed about message boards, they work in waves. What I mean is, a wave of one kind of argument will come out and that's all you hear for a time. The atheists all say the same things and point out the same things and they do it wave. Right now the wave is for the notion that sicence is the only form of Knowledge and only matters of fact are real. So in other words, if something isn't supportedd by fact hen it's "imaginary." That's the big pay off form them, God is "imaginary" so you would have to be a big fool to believe there's a God. Not one single fact proves God is He's "imaginary." The only that matters is fact. All you can believe is fact. If you believe something that is not a prove fact you are just the biggest kind of jackass the world has ever seen.

Things that are said to exist are detectable and evidenced; otherwise, existence becomes a meaningless word. What is the difference between a thing that exists and a thing that is only imaginary?

Lee Randolph on Debunking Christianity:

"Disregarding Established Knolwedge" 7/12/29

Its simple,
If your beliefs are not consitent with established human knowledge, then they probably are not justified. In that case, other people are not justified in believing what you say about them, and furthermore you have no reason to expect anyone to believe you.

So knowledge has to be established to be accepted. But then one wonders how we ever make new discoveries? They would have to start out as established, then they wouldn't be discoveries. If it is the case that we can let the barrier down long enough to find some new facts then it's not the case that only estabilshed knowledge is valid. Of course he's going to say it matters how it's established Now this is where the ideology comes in. Because he is going to say there's only one way to establish knowledge, that's his way; science. But not just any science obviously, because when I have discussed 350 empirical studies and documented why they are good studies and given a bibliography with every study listed, even then the atheists are too lazy to look up a single one. They brush whole lot of them aside without one single "fact" or one counter study, with no support at all for their ignorant dismissal. They are just cock sure that they must be crap and so there's no need to investigate. That's the true mark of "free thinking" that one is narrow minded and unwilling to investigate. They sweep aside studies with no good reason, using chinsy arguments such as "Depok Chopra is listed on the same bibliography so these studies must be bad." They are so deeply committed to scientific knowledge.

The fact is they have no commitment at all to learning or science. They mark out science as the only valid form of knowledge merely because they mistakenly think that it protects them from an angry God. Too lazy to think they seek to hide behind a wall of "facts." Hiding behind numbers they think makes them invulnerable to argument. They don't have to think, they don't have to face who they are or what they have done, that's not in the numbers so it doesn't matter. Now that the new mantra "just the facts" is going around as the latest atheist gimmick (just as God hates amputees did at one time) they have quick, easy to spout an automatic response so they don't have to think about the issues. There are no issues, it's easy as pie. Either you just shut up, hate Christians, follow what the atheist websites tell you is important and believe "the facts of science" and you don't have to sweat it. There's absolutely no data for God and so therefore its' stupid to believe all the other other ideological regurgitation from the great fool know nothing Dawkins.

It doesn't require some fancy Postmodern bs to see this for the naive position it is. The absurd mythology of the pristine holy scientific data, all knowing, inviolable, enlightened data that almost reeks of medieval devotional parlance. One almost expects to see them genuflect before a test tube. People gather data. That is to say, weak foolish and self interested human beings gather data. "Facts" are deceptive and they are not always what they seem. It is super foolish to pretend that there is this great wall of data that protects you from the angry God and proves your reductionist anti-human world view and makes you invincible and all knowing.People are biased bigoted self interested jerks. Facts can be false, they can be looked at wrong, they can be misinterpreted, they can be researched selectively, they can be foolish and unimportant. The famous journal debate in the 30s between Lundberg and Lynd, Lundberg argued sociologists don't collect data on the number bricks in a tenement and economists don't collect dates on coins in the economy. All research is selective and it is always done with an ideology in mind. All research is aimed at backing a paradigm.

Facts stack up to support a paradigm. They are the bed rock upon which a paradigm sits. But when the paradigm shifts (which happens because there are too many anomalies it no longer explains enough) then the facts that supported the old paradigm, still facts, become unimportant anomalies and no longer matter. It takes more than facts. you have to understand the big picture. You have to self aware, know the limitation of your view and your biases and you have to understand the philosophical stage upon which your data is presented. That's the only way to make sense of anything. People research collectively, they screen facts selectively.

To an ideologue the only facts that matter are those that support the ideology (paradigm). Thus all other facts are not counter evidence, they are merely anomalies to be absorbed by the paradigm and forgotten. Such is the case with atheist arguments.

Look at Mark, a guy on carm who attacked my writing, droning on and on about how fact oriented he is. I have presented a slew of facts. I have 350 studies that back up a huge array of data, representing thousands of facts. These are facts. It's a fact that people with this experience score higher on self actualization tests than those who don't. But that means nothing at all to any athist. water off a ducks back. ITs' a fact and it's well prove by what do agheists choose in stead of facts. They take un supported undocumented bs off the cuff that minimize the importance of the data and totally ignores the facts.

Has Mr. Fact man (Mark) ever presented a single fact? one study? no not to my knowledge. In all the years I've been on CARM (since 99) I have seen three atheists use studies, each one of them used just one study.People like Mark rant and rave about the importance of facts. They have no facts at all that disprove God. they make totally supported statements about the alleged lack of facts backing belief in God knowing full were there are thousands of facts supporting arguments for God and the only problem is the squabble over interpretation (of course they have a totally biased motive to down paly disregard and demean the facts presented in God arguments). Suddenly the fact are totally unimportant and philosophical concerns come the fore again and interpretation becomes all important when arguments life tuning arise. The atheist respect for the facts is totally limited to facts that support his world view only!

The scientistic or reductionist crowd has changed the meaning of the term knowledge. They have redefined the concept to the point that it no longer means anything but scinece. They have done a reductionism on the concept. Wikipeidia defines scinece as "knowledge." This is not an authoritative source, but it is a good indication of the fallout among popular view points.

Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") refers to any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice that is capable of resulting in a prediction or predictable type of outcome. In this sense, science may refer to a highly skilled technique or practice.[1]

The problem here is Scientia is not science. That term had a special meaning prior to the advent of mathematical probability. I did a major paper in Graduate school on this and it was part of my dissertation research. Ian Hacking documents that scientist was authority, it was a kind of "probability" prior to Pascal's version of mathematical probability and it worked by the authoritative sighting of traditional venerated sources. In the general population the easy formulation of "science = knowledge" has come to be made so lazily and easily that this is all people know. People no longer bother to distinguish between types of knowledge. The notion that science is the only form of knowledge follows naturally out of that reductionism.

The "real" authoritative dictionary definition of "knowledge" is not limited to just scientific knowledge.

Main Entry:
knowl·edge Listen to the pronunciation of knowledge
Pronunciation:
\ˈnä-lij\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English knowlege, from knowlechen to acknowledge, irregular from knowen
Date:
14th century

This definition of knowledge from the real dictionary does not limit knowledge to science, in include awareness of anything including art. Atheist limit knowledge to science in the mistaken delusional belief that science somehow disproves God and provides them with a means of buffeting the logic of God arguments they can't beat.
The irony is that even though the reductionists have foisted this er zots view upon the public scientists themselves don't buy it. Scientists working environmental fields for example have gained respect for "traditional forms of knowledge" (that means "primitive people gathering roots and herbs). Scientists working in these fields contrived ways to preserve and venerate the use of traditional knowledge while understanding it's application to modern science.

In addressing the goals of sustainable development, the role of science is crucial; scientific knowledge and appropriate technologies are central to resolving the economic, social and environmental problems that make current development paths unsustainable. However, science does not constitute the only form of knowledge, and closer links need to be established between science and other forms and systems of knowledge in addressing sustainable development issues and problems at the local level such as natural resources management and biodiversity conservation.

Traditional societies, usually with strong cultural roots, have nurtured and refined systems of knowledge of their own, relating to such diverse domains as astronomy, meteorology, geology, ecology, botany, agriculture, physiology, psychology and health. Such knowledge systems represent an enormous wealth. Not only do they represent other approaches of the acquisition and construction of knowledge and harbour information often as yet unknown to science, but they are also expressions of other relationships between society and nature in general and of sustainable ways of managing natural resources in particular.

(ICSU is tied into UNESCO).

Science still relies upon reason for it's premises and for the understanding of its data. This means that science as a pristine and pure fact rather appertains which is always objective and correct is an illusion and myth. Since still requires reason and so one must understand logic and reason to understand science.

Course work.info "Some People think Science is the Supreme From of knowledge."
gooble html version

Science also relies on reason as a way of knowing. Reason is used to turn the data that the scientist has collected into a logical conclusion. Sometimes scientists draw the wrong conclusions from their research. This is called post hoc ergo propter hoc or 'false cause'. For instance: 'both today and yesterday it rained. I did not take my umbrella with me on either day; I will lake it with me tomorrow to ensure that it does not rain.' It is important to realise "the essence of scientific truth: it can never be proved experimentally that a claim is correct, but it can be proved that it's wrong".4* This is because of a characteristic of the logic that a scientist uses when interpreting his data. This interpretation is generally done through Induction, the idea that because your experiments keep confirming your hypothesis, the hypothesis is correct. Karl Popper observed that every swan he had seen was white. He concluded that all swans were white. However he had been observing swans in the northern hemisphere, and black swans exist in places such as Australia. Albert Einstein said: "A thousand experiments may prove my hypothesis right, but one experiment can prove it wrong”.5 No scientific theory is certain; it has just not been proved wrong yet. However most of us accept that it is true that day turns to night because the earth is turning on its axis. Therefore some theories are so close to certain that they are accepted as true.

The book that I'm writing, and almost finished, is a prime example of the need to go beyond this mere wall of numbers in seeking truth. There's a vast subject area atheists are as afraid to explore, that is the field of psychology and religion. This is the field that produced the 350 studies on religious experience. There is much more to it than just that. The study I posted before, about religious expedience and the "physically challenged" is a prime example. That study demonstrates the use of reason, philosophy and other areas of knowledge in the scientific method to produce a deeper understanding of human experience. They are not trying to reduce experience to a wall of numbers so they don't have to take responsibility or feel anything, they are trying to actually get at a reality about being human. That study even uses phenomenology in a way that allows the data to suggest categories rather than submerging the data in preconceived categories.

That's the whole point of phenomenology in the first place We normally pigeon hole sense data into preconceived categories. This means that most research is done to confirm biases rather than to find truths. Phenomenology is an attempt to get around that process by allowing the data to suggest the categories itself. With the phenomenological outlook the kind of data used is sense data not numbers that have already been digested and transformed into ledger sheets or distilled into biased pre ordained conclusions. This sort of thing has been going on in psychology for a long time. Some of it is wacky, some is "new age," some is very valid and it requires reason to discern which is which. The reductionist pigeon hole because they have to have that unassailable wall of numbers to hide behind. They reduce anything to the distilled numbers that can be used to support their biases.

The atheists create an even more truncated step in this process by directly filtering all "facts" through the ideological lens. Half of my God arguments are based upon empirical data. But the atheists can't handle, they can't answer God arguments so in an attempt to just make theists shut up and stop embarrassing them with stuff they can't answer they come up with the idea that God arguments are just wrong headed a priori and they are not be listened to. Thus the facts that support those arguments have to go away. They are not longer facts and they are not important facts, they are just anomalies to be absorbed into he paradigm.Atheists on the message boards have such little regard for the facts (the one's I present, well documented and totally researched thousands of empirically scientific facts gathered in hundreds of studies) they refuse to even look one of them up! that's how dedicated they are to facts.The bias and hypocrisy of researchers is the most important fact of all.

We have to think about God in terms of philosophical arguments because God transcends "thinghood" and is not given in sense data. This is far from meaning that God is not detectable. But we can't do in science, we have to use other means. There are other means. We know that scientific knowledge and method allows things to fall through the cracks away. Induction by its nature, in terms of scientific usage, only takes averages and allows things that don't fit the average to fall through he cracks. On a basic simple level, the average woman is not strong enough to beat up the average man. But there are women who can mop the floor with me because they don't fit the average, probably neither do I. The very concept that knowing about great ideas is not intelligent and doesn't require intellectual ability (which is something most of these atheists believe) merely because they don't accept philosophy and thinking, is just idiotic. They have to rule out the acquisition of knowledge concerning great ideas.

The real tyranny comes in where they attempt to rule out any epistemic or ontological alternative merely because it doesn't suit their ideology. God is at the basis of reality, God is the foundation of reality. God is not a thing in creation. So naturally God can't be studied directly through empirical means, he's not given in sense data. God has to be fall between the cracks. Then he's ruled out of established knowledge because only that which is given in sense data can be distilled into the impregnable wall of numbers. The wall of numbers (the one atheists hide behind so can't see them) is only constructed out of "facts" they deem important anyway (those that support their ideology). So at that rate they already have multiple levels of reduction where they have closed the cracks on the things that fall between them and merely pretend they were never there. The supreme arrogance of this tyranny is the worst in humanity. The reason is because they are willing to screen out the most sacred ideas, love, truth, tolerance, open mindedness, learning, thinking, art, life, emotion, morality, merely to get God arguments off their backs and to maintain this impregnable wall of numbers behind which they imagine God can't see them.

We can see them doing this screening process all the time. I hate to pick on Lee Randolph again, but he so clearly typifies this ideological goose stepping:
7/10/2009 "direct evidence of moral behavior from evolution."

My working hypothesis is that Game Theory and simple rules derived from self-interest are sufficient to generate self-organized behavior that is labeled as "Morality". Here's more evidence to back that up.

"We published indirect evidence for this in 2004; we have now shown it directly and found a simple explanation for it. Our findings confirm that cooperation does not always require benevolence or deliberate planning. This form of cooperation, at least, is guided by an ‘invisible hand’, as happens so often in Darwin’s theory of natural selection.”

The problem with this kind of thinking is that just finding biological roots for behaviors is not morality. We are not getting at the origins of morality by showing forerunners in biology. All we do with that is to show, maybe, the origins of our inspirations for morality. Trying to reduce values to pragmatic tips for survive is not a valid means of demonstrating the nature of moral thinking. We could explore than invisible hand thing. There might be an organizing principle that suggests the TS argument, or it might just be an empty invisible hand that has nothing better to than fill itself with a useless exercise in number crunching. But the fact remains, morality is a form of ethics, and ethical requires ethical decision making. you can't get an ought out of an is, biological tenderizes for behavior are only "is." Before you can turn these unimportant facts into ethical decisions you have to do some thinking, that thinking has been done for the most part by philosophers. This is part of what we call "knowledge." So to understand mortally we have to expand you knowledge base to something other than science.

Facts are not knowledge. We need to understand the global nature of knowledge. Facts are not the limit on the nature of knowledge. Like Webster's says that knowledge is any understanding of anything. In an educational sense "knowledge" is the learning we derive from understanding what we study. We can't narrow the field of matters deemed worthy to study to just scientific matters. The basic human condition is what should concern us because we are human Our condition implies that all knowledge is important. We need to be global in our understanding of knowledge. The ontological and the metaphysical are above the scientific because they include the sweeping structures that tell us what is important knowledge and what is a lose collection of "facts" gathered as the analogue to a string collection. The hard science reductionists are even willing to cancel out social sciences. We need all of it, art, literature, philosophy, history, social science, every field. The reductionist ideology seeks to control minds. It seeks to shut down learning and shut down reflection upon being human.
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